A dream, a lion, an inescapable blade....

Thomas Brooks from Seattle offers this beautiful account of his encounter with His Holiness Karmapa.

After many years of anticipation, I finally saw His Holiness Karmapa at Nalanda West (in Seattle) on May 30th, 2008....

He is like a dream, I thought at first, and later as well. He appears also to be like a lion, or some other huge cat with a cauldron of awakened energy flashing out through the eyes, which seem to be two beautiful hooded windows offering glimpses into some radiant fiery universe within. Most of all, however: he is like a blade, a sword or perhaps Dorje Bernagchen's knife, an inescapable blade that cuts through all triviality, all hokum, all that is mundane, dead, asleep, inauthentic. He is gracious, graceful (all his physical movements and gestures are naturally beautiful), but he is utterly uncompromising. Only the truth will do, for him. Only the truth beyond flimsy appearances. He is heartbreaking, breathtaking, a source of ferocious delight, the cutting wind that sweeps away all facades. One wants to stare at him, drink him in, be slashed by the sword of wisdom. And yet he is kind: his fearlessness demonstrates the real world, the awakened world beyond suffering, beyond falsity. He leads one immediately beyond one's own folly. He is the gleaming blade of rejoicing; his words and voice make the Dharma direct and actual. No theory or ideas here: just the roar of clarity that relieves all this preposterous illusion. This is the presence of Mind.